High-Sensitivity All-Fiber Sensor Smart Gloves for Hand Perception

Flexible piezoresistive sensors (FPSs) with high sensitivity and conformability are crucial for achieving fine operations in electronic gloves. In this work, a chemical grafting method is used to ensure strong interfacial bonding between the conductive phase and the flexible polyimide (PI) matrix with a high glass transition temperature (<i>T</i>_g). This design helps to tackle the stress relaxation and interfacial debonding problems commonly faced by FPSs. Silver fiber electrodes are prepared by in situ reduction of silver nanoparticles on PI fibers to further improve the sensitivity. This FPS is characterized by high sensitivity (214.6 kPa^-1), low response time and recovery time (44 and 42 ms, respectively), outstanding recoverable performance (with a low hysteresis of 4.58% FS), and remarkable dynamic stability (a 3.6% decay of signal intensity after 24,000 cycles). An all-fiber flexible piezoresistive sensor array glove has been constructed to achieve conformal contact with the robot hand. Furthermore, comprehensive detection of multipoint pressures on the hand and high-sensitivity tactile perception for the robot hand have been achieved.